Mumbai : The India International Exchange (IFSC) Limited (India INX), India’s first international exchange based in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) has achieved a major milestone on April 16th, 2018 when the daily trading turnover of its Derivatives segment crossed approx. Rupees 3,460 crores (USD 528.7 million).

India INX also achieved an all-time high monthly Average Daily Volume (ADV) of 15,928 contracts (lots) during March 2018, an increase of over 33 times from March 2017 (482 lots). The ADV for the first half of Apr 2018 is already crossed 25,490 lots, an increase of 60 percent over the previous month Mar 2018.

As on April 16, 2018, the cumulative trading volume of India INX Derivatives segment has increased to 1.97 million contracts with the cumulative trading turnover surpassing USD 32 billion. Remarkably, India INX’s trading volume during the first three months of calendar year 2018 of 0.91 million contracts is more than the trading volume (0.78 million contracts) during the entire calendar year 2017.

The Government of India through its Union Budget 2018 has exempted derivatives transactions conducted in the IFSC GIFT City from Capital Gains Tax. There is a tax holiday for 100% of the eligible profits or gains for an initial period of five years and a further 50% tax exemption for the subsequent five year period. The Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) applicable for IFSC entities is at 9 percent. Non-corporate taxpayers operating in IFSC shall be charged Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) at concessional rate of 9 percent at par with MAT applicable for corporates.

Additionally, unlike the domestic markets, there is no Security Transaction Tax (STT), no Commodity Transaction Tax (CTT), no Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT), no Short-term Capital Gains Tax (STCG) and no Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) tax for transactions across multi-asset classes such as Derivatives, GDRs and Bonds, no Stamp duty for entities with registered office at GIFT, no GST on dollar denominated services procured or offered internationally. Creation of a Unified Authority for regulating all financial services in IFSCs in India will decrease the set-up time for entities.